Not even the kindly drapery of a morning-wrapper could conceal the fact
that Agnes was growing stout--quite losing her fine figure. That came
of her having given up riding-exercise. And all to please Mr. Henry. He
did not ride himself, and felt nervous or perhaps a little jealous when
his wife was on horseback.
She was still very pretty of course--though by daylight the fine bloom
of her cheeks began to break up into a network of tiny veins--and her
fair, smooth brow bore no trace of the tragedy she has gone through. The
double tragedy; for, soon after the master of Dandaloo's death in a
Melbourne lunatic asylum, the little son of the house had died, not yet
fourteen years of age, in an Inebriate's Home. Far was it from Mary to
wish her friend to brood or repine; but to have ceased to remember as
utterly as Agnes had done had something callous about it; and, in her
own heart, Mary devoted a fresh regret to the memory of the poor little
stepchild of fate.
The ball for which all these silken niceties were destined had been
organised to raise funds for a public monument to the two explorers,
Burke and Wills, and was to be one of the grandest ever given in
Ballarat. His Excellency the Governor would, it was hoped, be present in
person; the ladies had taken extraordinary pains with their toilettes.
and there had been the usual grumblings at expense on the part of the
husbands--though not a man but wished and privately expected HIS wife
"to take the shine out of all the rest.
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